The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (101 page)

“Trell are quite literate,” Mappo said. “Have been for some time. Seven, eight centuries, in fact.”

“Must update my library, an expensive proposition. Raising shadows to pillage great libraries of the world.” He squatted down at the fireplace, frowning through the soot covering his face.

Mappo cleared his throat. “Burn what into a crisp, High Priest?”

“Spiders, of course. This temple is rotten with spiders. Kill them on sight, Trell. Use those thick-soled feet, those leathery hands. Kill them all, do you understand?”

Nodding, Mappo pulled the fur blanket closer around him, wincing only slightly as the hide brushed the puckered wounds on the back of his neck. The fever had broken, as much due to his own reserves as, he suspected, the dubious medicines applied by Iskaral's silent servant. The fangs and claws of D'ivers and Soletaken bred a singularly virulent sickness, often culminating in hallucinations, bestial madness, then death. For many who survived, the madness remained, reappearing on a regular basis for one or two nights nine or ten times each year. It was a madness often characterized by murder.

Iskaral Pust believed Mappo had escaped that fate, but the Trell would not himself be confident of that until at least two cycles of the moon had passed without sign of any symptoms. He did not like to think what he would be capable of when gripped in a murderous rage. Many years ago among the warband ravaging the Jhag Odhan, Mappo had willed himself into such a state, as warriors often did, and his memories of the deaths he delivered remained with him and always would.

If the Soletaken's poison was alive within him, Mappo would take his own life rather than unleash its will.

Iskaral Pust stabbed the broom into each corner of the small mendicant's chamber that was the Trell's quarters, then reached up to the ceiling corners to do the same. “Kill what bites, kill what stings, this sacred precinct of Shadow must be pristine! Kill all that slithers, all that scuttles. You were examined for vermin, the both of you, oh yes. No unwelcome visitors permitted. Lye baths were prepared, but nothing on either of you. I remain suspicious, of course.”

“Have you resided here long, High Priest?”

“No idea. Irrelevant. Importance lies solely in the deeds done, the goals achieved. Time is preparation, nothing more. One prepares for as long as is required. To do this is to accept that planning begins at birth. You are born and before all else you are plunged into shadow, wrapped inside the holy ambivalence, there to suckle sweet sustenance. I live to prepare, Trell, and the preparations are nearly complete.”

“Where is Icarium?”

“A life given for a life taken, tell him that. In the library. The nuns left but a handful of books. Tomes devoted to pleasuring themselves. Best read in bed, I find. The rest of the material is mine, a scant collection, dreadful paucity, I am embarrassed. Hungry?”

Mappo shook himself. The High Priest's rambles had a hypnotic quality. Each question the Trell voiced was answered with a bizarre rambling monologue that seemed to drain him of will beyond the utterance of yet another question. True to his assertions, Iskaral Pust could make the passing of time meaningless. “Hungry? Aye.”

“Servant prepares food.”

“Can he bring it to the library?”

The High Priest scowled. “Collapse of etiquette. But if you insist.”

The Trell pushed himself upright. “Where is the library?”

“Turn right, proceed thirty-four paces, turn right again, twelve paces, then through door on the right, thirty-five paces, through archway on right another eleven paces, turn right one last time, fifteen paces, enter the door on the right.”

Mappo stared at Iskaral Pust.

The High Priest shifted nervously.

“Or,” the Trell said, eyes narrowed, “turn left, nineteen paces.”

“Aye,” Iskaral muttered.

Mappo strode to the door. “I shall take the short route, then.”

“If you must,” the High Priest growled as he bent to close examination of the broom's ragged end.

 

The breach of etiquette was explained when, upon entering the library, Mappo saw that the squat chamber also served as kitchen. Icarium sat at a robust black-stained table a few paces to the Trell's right, while Servant hunched over a cauldron suspended by chain over a hearth a pace to Mappo's left. Servant's head was almost invisible inside a cloud of steam, drenched in condensation and dripping into the cauldron as he worked a wooden ladle in slow, turgid circles.

“I shall pass on the soup, I think,” Mappo said to the man.

“These books are rotting,” Icarium said, leaning back and eyeing Mappo. “You are recovered?”

“So it seems.”

Still studying the Trell, Icarium frowned. “Soup? Ah,” his expression cleared, “not soup. Laundry. You'll find more palatable fare on the carving table.” He gestured to the wall behind Servant, then returned to the mouldering pages of an ancient book opened before him. “This is astonishing, Mappo…”

“Given how isolated those nuns were,” Mappo said as he approached the carving table, “I'm surprised you're astonished.”

“Not those books, friend. Iskaral's own. There are works here whose existence was but the faintest rumor. And some—like this one—that I have never heard of before.
A Treatise on Irrigation Planning in the Fifth Millenium of Ararkal
, by no fewer than four authors.”

Returning to the library table with a pewter plate piled high with bread and cheese, Mappo leaned over his friend's shoulder to examine the detailed drawings on the book's vellum pages, then the strange, braided script. The Trell grunted. Mouth suddenly dry, he managed to mutter, “What is so astonishing about that?”

Icarium leaned back. “The sheer…frivolity, Mappo. The materials alone for this tome are a craftsman's annual wage. No scholar in their right mind would waste such resources—never mind their time—on such a pointless, trite subject. And this is not the only example. Look,
Seed Dispersal Patterns of the Purille Flower on the Skar Archipelago
, and here,
Diseases of White-Rimmed Clams of Lekoor Bay
. And I am convinced that these works are thousands of years old. Thousands.”

And in a language I never knew you would recognize, much less understand
. He recalled when he'd last seen such a script, beneath a hide canopy on a hill that marked his tribe's northernmost border. He'd been among a handful of guards escorting the tribe's elders to what would prove a fateful summons.

Autumn rains drumming overhead, they had squatted in a half-circle, facing north, and watched as seven robed and hooded figures approached. Each held a staff, and as they strode beneath the canopy and stood in silence before the elders, Mappo saw, with a shiver, how those staves seemed to writhe before his eyes, the wood like serpentine roots, or perhaps those parasitic trees that entwined the boles of others, choking the life from them. Then he realized that the twisted madness of the shafts was in fact runic etching, ever changing, as if unseen hands continually carved words anew with every breath's span.

Then one among them withdrew its hood, and so began the moment that would change Mappo's future path. His thoughts jerked away from the memory.

Trembling, the Trell sat down, clearing a space for his plate. “Is all this important, Icarium?”

“Significant, Mappo. The civilization that brought forth these works must have been appallingly rich. The language is clearly related to modern Seven Cities dialects, although in some ways more sophisticated. And see this symbol, here in the spine of each such tome? A twisted staff. I have seen that symbol before, friend. I am certain of it.”

“Rich, you said?” The Trell struggled to drag the conversation away from what he knew to be a looming precipice. “More like mired in minutiae. Probably explains why it's dust and ashes. Arguing over seeds in the wind while barbarians batter down the gates. Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will. You know that as well as I. In this case it was an indolence characterized by a pursuit of knowledge, a frenzied search for answers to everything, no matter the value of such answers. A civilization can as easily drown in what it knows as in what it doesn't know. Consider,” he continued, “
Gothos's Folly
. Gothos's curse was in being too aware—of everything. Every permutation, every potential. Enough to poison every scan he cast on the world. It availed him naught, and worse, he was aware of even that.”

“You must be feeling better,” Icarium said wryly. “Your pessimism has revived. In any case, these works support my belief that the many ruins in Raraku and the Pan'potsun Odhan are evidence that a thriving civilization once existed here. Indeed, perhaps the first true human civilization, from which all others were born.”

Leave this path of thought, Icarium. Leave it now
. “And how does this knowledge avail us in our present situation?”

Icarium's expression soured slightly. “My obsession with time, of course. Writing replaces memory, you see, and the language itself changes because of it. Think of my mechanisms, in which I seek to measure the passage of hours, days, years. Such measurings are by nature cyclic, repetitive. Words and sentences once possessed the same rhythms, and could thus be locked into one's mind and later recalled with absolute precision. Perhaps,” he mused after a moment, “if I was illiterate I would not be so forgetful.” He sighed, forced a smile. “Besides, I was but passing time, Mappo.”

The Trell tapped one blunt, wrinkled finger on the open book. “I imagine the authors of this would have defended their efforts with the same words, friend. I have a more pressing concern.”

The Jhag's expression was cool, not completely masking amusement. “And that is?”

Mappo gestured. “This place. Shadow does not list among my favorite cults. Nest of assassins and worse. Illusion and deceit and betrayal. Iskaral Pust affects a harmless façade, but I am not fooled. He was clearly expecting us, and anticipates our involvement in whatever schemes he plans. We risk much in lingering here.”

“But Mappo,” Icarium said slowly, “it is precisely here, in this place, that my goal shall be achieved.”

The Trell winced. “I feared you would say that. Now you shall have to explain it to me.”

“I cannot, friend. Not yet. What I hold are suspicions, nothing more. When I am certain, I shall feel confident enough to explain. Can you be patient with me?”

In his mind's eye he saw another face, this one human, thin and pale, raindrops tracking runnels down the withered cheeks. Flat, gray eyes reaching up, finding Mappo's own beyond the rim of elders. “Do you know us?” The voice was a rasp of rough leather.

An elder had nodded. “We know you as the Nameless Ones.”

“It is well,” the man replied, eyes still fixed on Mappo's own. “The Nameless Ones, who think not in years, but in centuries. Chosen warrior,” he continued, addressing Mappo, “what can you learn of patience?”

Like rooks bursting from a copse, the memories fled. Staring at Icarium, Mappo managed a smile, revealing his gleaming canines. “Patient? I can be nothing else with you. Nonetheless, I do not trust Iskaral Pust.”

Servant began removing sopping clothes and bedding from the cauldron, using his bare hands as he squeezed steaming water from the bundles. Watching him, the Trell frowned. One of Servant's arms was strangely pink, unweathered, almost youthful. The other more befitted the man's evident age, thickly muscled, hairy and tanned.

“Servant?”

The man did not look up.

“Can you speak?” Mappo continued.

“It seems,” Icarium said when Servant made no response, “that he's turned a deaf ear to us, by his Master's command, I'd warrant. Shall we explore this temple, Mappo? Bearing in mind that every shadow is likely to echo our words as a whisper in the High Priest's ears.”

“Well,” the Trell growled as he rose, “it is of little concern to me that Iskaral knows of my distrust.”

“He surely knows more of us than we do of him,” Icarium said, also rising.

As they left, Servant was still twisting water from the cloth with something like savage joy, the veins thick on his massive forearms.

A crowd of dusty, sweat-smeared men gathered around as the last of the bodies were removed. The dust cloud hung unmoving over the mine entrance as it had for most of the morning, since the collapse of the reach at the far end of Deep Mine. Under Beneth's command the slaves had worked frantically to retrieve the thirty-odd companions buried in the fall.

None had survived. Expressionless, Felisin watched with a dozen other slaves from the rest ramp at Twistings Mouth while they awaited the arrival of refilled water casks. The heat had turned even the deepest reaches of the mines into sweltering, dripping ovens. Slaves were collapsing by the score every hour below ground.

On the other side of the pit, Heboric tilled the parched earth of Deepsoil. It was his second week there and the cleaner air and the relief from pulling stone carts had improved his health. A shipment of limes delivered at Beneth's command had helped as well.

Had she not seen to his transfer, Heboric would now be dead, his body crushed under tons of rock. He owed her his life.

The realization brought Felisin little satisfaction. They rarely spoke to each other any more. Head clouded with durhang smoke, it was all Felisin could do to drag herself home from Bula's each night. She slept long hours but gained no rest. The days working in Twistings passed in a long, numb haze. Even Beneth had complained that her lovemaking had become…torpid.

The thuds and grunts of the water carts on the pitted work road grew louder, but Felisin could not pull her gaze from the rescuers as they laid out the mangled corpses to await the body wagon. A faint residue of pity clung to what she could see of the scene, but even that seemed too much of an effort, never mind pulling away her eyes.

For all her dulled responses, she went to Beneth, wanting to be used, more and more often. She sought him out when he was drunk, weaving and generous, when he offered her to his friends, to Bula and to other women.

You're numb, girl
, Heboric had said one of the few times he'd addressed her.
Yet your thirst for feeling grows, until even pain will do. But you're looking in the wrong places
.

Wrong places. What did he know of wrong places? The far reach of Deep Mine was a wrong place. The Shaft, where the bodies would be dumped, that was a wrong place.
Everywhere else is just a shade of good enough
.

She was ready to move in with Beneth, punctuating the choices she'd made. In a few days, perhaps. Next week. Soon. She'd made such an issue of her own independence, but it was proving not so great a task to surrender it after all.

“Lass.”

Blinking, Felisin looked up. It was the young Malazan guard, the one who'd warned Beneth once
…long ago
.

The soldier grinned. “Find the quote yet?”

“What?”

“From Kellanved's writings, girl.” The boy was frowning now. “I suggested you find someone who knew the rest of the passage I quoted.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

He reached down, the calluses ridging the index finger and thumb of his sword hand scraping her chin and jawline as he raised her face. She winced in the bright light when he pushed her hair back. “Durhang,” he whispered. “Queen's heart, girl, you look ten years older than the last time I saw you, and when was that? Two weeks back.”

“Ask Beneth,” she mumbled, pulling her head away from his touch.

“Ask him what?”

“For me. In your bed. He'll say yes, but only if he's drunk. He'll be drunk tonight. He grieves for the dead with a jug. Or two. Touch me then.”

He straightened. “Where's Heboric?”

“Heboric? Deepsoil.” She thought to ask why he wanted him instead of her, but the question drifted away. He could touch her tonight. She'd grown to like calluses.

 

Beneth was paying Captain Sawark a visit and he'd decided to take her with him. He was looking to make a deal, Felisin belatedly realized, and he'd offer her to the captain as an incentive.

They approached Rathole Round from Work Road, passing Bula's Inn where half a dozen off-duty Dosii guards lounged around the front door, their bored gazes tracking them.

“Walk a straight line, lass,” Beneth grumbled, taking her arm. “And stop dragging your feet. It's what you like, isn't it? Always wanting more.”

An undercurrent of disgust had come to his tone when he spoke to her. He'd stopped making promises.
I'll make you my own, girl. Move in with me. We won't need anyone else
. Those gruff, whispered assurances had vanished. The realization did not bother Felisin. She'd never really believed Beneth anyway.

Directly ahead, Sawark's Keep rose squat from the center of Rathole Round, its huge, rough-cut blocks of stone stained from the greasy smoke that never really left Skullcup. A lone guard stood outside the entrance, a pike held loosely in one hand. “Hard luck,” he said once they were near.

“What is?” Beneth demanded.

The soldier shrugged. “This morning's cave-in, what else?”

“We might've saved some,” Beneth said, “if Sawark had sent us some help.”

“Saved some? What's the point? Sawark's not in the mood if you've come here to complain.” The man's flat eyes flicked to Felisin. “If you're here with a gift, that would be another matter.” The guard opened the heavy door. “He's in the office.”

Beneth grunted. Tugging at Felisin's arm, he dragged her through the portal. The ground floor was an armory, weapons lining the walls in locked racks. A table and three chairs were off to one side, the leavings of the guards' breakfast crowding the small tabletop. Up from the room's center rose an iron staircase.

They ascended a single flight to Sawark's office. The captain sat behind a desk that seemed cobbled together from driftwood. His chair was plushly padded with a high back. A large, leather-bound tally book was opened before him. Sawark set down his quill and leaned back.

Felisin could not recall ever having seen the captain before. He made a point of remaining aloof, isolated here within his tower. The man was thin, devoid of fat, the muscles on his bared forearms like twisted cables under pale skin. Against the present fashion, he was bearded, the wiry black ringlets oiled and scented. The hair on his head was cut short. Watery green eyes glittered from a permanent squint above high cheekbones. His wide mouth was bracketed in deep downturned lines. He stared steadily at Beneth, ignoring Felisin as if she was not there.

Beneth pushed her down in a chair close to one wall, on Sawark's left, then sat himself down in the lone chair directly facing the captain. “Ugly rumors, Sawark. Want to hear them?”

The captain's voice was soft. “What will that cost me?”

“Nothing. These are free.”

“Go on, then.”

“The Dosii are talking loud at Bula's. Promising the Whirlwind.”

Sawark scowled. “More of that nonsense. No wonder you give me this news free, Beneth, it's worthless.”

“So I too thought at the beginning, but—”

“What else have you to tell me?”

Beneth's eyes dropped to the ledger on the desk. “You've tallied this morning's dead? Did you find the name you sought?”

“I sought no particular name, Beneth. You think you've guessed something, but there's nothing there. I'm losing patience.”

“There were four mages among the victims—”

“Enough! Why are you here?”

Beneth shrugged, as if tossing away whatever suspicions he held. “A gift,” he said, gesturing to Felisin. “Very young. Docile, but ever eager. No spirit to resist—do whatever you want, Sawark.”

The captain's scowl darkened.

“In exchange,” Beneth continued, “I wish the answer to a single question. The slave Baudin was arrested this morning—why?”

Felisin blinked. Baudin? She shook her head, trying to clear it of the fog that marked her waking hours. Was this important?

“Arrested in Whipcord Lane after curfew. He got away but one of my men recognized him and so the arrest was effected this morning.” Sawark's watery gaze finally swung to Felisin. “Very young, you said? Eighteen, nineteen? You're getting old, Beneth, if you call that very young.”

She felt his eyes exploring her like ghost hands. This time, the sensation was anything but pleasing. She fought back a shiver.

“She's fifteen, Sawark. But experienced. Arrived but two transports ago.”

The captain's eyes sharpened on her, and she watched, wondering, as all the blood drained from his face.

Beneth surged to his feet. “I'll send another. Two young girls from the last shipment.” He stepped close to Felisin and pulled her upright. “I guarantee your satisfaction, Captain. They'll be here within the hour—”

“Beneth.” Sawark's voice was soft. “Baudin works for you, does he not?”

“An acquaintance, Sawark. Not one of my trusted ones. I asked because he's on my reach crew. One less strong man will slow us if you're still holding him tomorrow.”

“Live with it, Beneth.”

Neither one believes the other
. The thought was like a glimmer of long-lost awareness in Felisin. She drew a deep breath.
Something's happening. I need to think about it. I need to be listening. Listening, right now
.

In answer to Sawark's suggestion, Beneth sighed heavily. “I shall have to do just that, then. Until later, Captain.”

Felisin did not resist as Beneth propelled her toward the stairs. Once outside he pulled her across the Round, not answering the Keep guard as the man said something in a sneering tone. Breathing hard, Beneth dragged her into the shadows of an alley, then swung her around.

His voice was a harsh rasp. “Who are you, girl, his long-lost daughter? Hood's breath! Clear your wits! Tell me what happened just now in that office! Baudin? What's Baudin to you? Answer me!”

“He's—he's nothing—”

The back of his hand when it struck her face was like a sack of rocks. Light exploded behind Felisin's eyes as she sprawled sideways. Blood streamed from her nose as she lay unmoving in the alley's rotting refuse. Staring dumbly at the ground six inches away, she watched the red pool spread in the dust.

Beneth dragged her upright and threw her up against a wood-slatted wall. “Your full name, lass. Tell me!”

“Felisin,” she mumbled. “Just that—”

Snarling, he raised his hand again.

She stared at the marks her teeth had left just above the knuckles. “No! I swear it! I was a foundling—”

Disbelief crazed his eyes. “A
what?
”

“Found outside the Fener Monastery on Malaz Island—the Empress made accusations—followers of Fener. Heboric—”

“Your ship came from Unta, lass. What do you take me for? You're nobleborn—”

“No! Only well cared for. Please, Beneth, I'm not lying. I don't understand Sawark. Maybe Baudin spun a tale, a lie to save his own skin—”

“Your ship sailed from Unta. You've never even been to Malaz Island. This monastery, near which city?”

“Jakata. There's only two cities on the island. The other's Malaz City, I was sent there for a summer. Schooling. I was in training to be a priestess. Ask Heboric, Beneth. Please.”

“Name me the poorest quarter of Malaz City.”

“Poorest?”

“Name it!”

“I don't know! The Fener Temple is in Dockfront! Is it the poorest? There were slums outside the city, lining the Jakata Road. I was there for but a season, Beneth! And I hardly saw Jakata—we weren't allowed! Please, Beneth, I don't understand any of this! Why are you hurting me? I've done everything you wanted me to do—I slept with your friends, I let you trade me, I made myself
valuable—
”

He struck her again, no longer seeking answers or a way through her frantic lies—a new reason had appeared in his eyes, birthing a bright rage. He beat her systematically, in silent, cold fury. After the first few blows, Felisin curled herself tight around the pain, the shadow-cooled alley dust feeling like a balm where her flesh lay upon it. She struggled to concentrate on her breathing, closing in on that one task, drawing the air in, fighting the waves of agony that came with the effort, then releasing it slowly, a steady stream that carried the pain away.

Eventually she realized that Beneth had stopped, that perhaps he'd only struck her a few times, and that he had left. She was alone in the alley, the thin strip of sky overhead darkening with dusk. She heard occasional voices in the street beyond but no one approached the narrow aisle she huddled in.

She woke again later. Apparently she had passed out while crawling toward the alley mouth. The torchlit Work Road was a dozen paces away. Figures ran through her line of sight. Through the constant ringing in her ears, she heard shouts and screams. The air stank of smoke. She thought to resume crawling, then consciousness slipped away again.

Cool cloth brushed her brow. Felisin opened her eyes.

Heboric was bending over her and seemed to be studying her pupils, each in turn. “You with us, lass?”

Her jaw ached, her lips were crusted together with scabs. She nodded, only now realizing that she was lying in her own bed.

“I'm going to rub some oil on your lips, see if we can prise them open without it hurting too much. You need water.”

She nodded again, and steeled herself against the pain of his ministrations as he dabbed at her mouth with the oil-soaked cloth strapped onto the stub of his left arm. He spoke as he worked. “Eventful night for us all. Baudin escaped the jail, lighting a few buildings to flame for diversion. He's hiding somewhere here in Skullcup. No one tried the cliff walls or Sinker Lake—the cordon of guards lining Beetle Road up top reported no attempts to breach, in any case. Sawark's posted a reward—wants the bastard alive, not least because Baudin went and killed three of his men. I suspect there's more to the tale, what do you think? Then Beneth reports you missing from the Twistings work line this morning, starts me wondering. So I go to talk to him at the midday break—says he last saw you at Bula's last night, says he's cut you loose because you're all used up, sucking more smoke into your lungs than air, as if he ain't to blame for that. But all the while he's talking, I'm studying those cut marks on his knuckles. Beneth was in a fight last night, I see, and the only damage he's sporting is what was done by somebody's teeth. Well, the weeding's done and nobody's keeping an eye an old Heboric, so I spend the afternoon looking, checking alleys, expecting the worst I admit—”